


Toybox

by Shachaai



Category: Shiritsu Horitsuba Gakuen, Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Genre: Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Photographs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-26
Updated: 2010-09-26
Packaged: 2017-10-12 05:30:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/121331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shachaai/pseuds/Shachaai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kurogane finds an old, loved photograph at the Fluorites' home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Toybox

**Author's Note:**

> Squint and you might catch implied KuroFai/KuroFaiYuui, but it's friendship just as easily.

There are some exceedingly battered books on the low desk in Yuui's bedroom, either too big or too bulky or too _something_ to fit into the bookcase out in the main room. They've slightly-faded covers from having seen the Italian sun a little too often, and the corners of the pages are all a little bent. Kurogane can't even even understand the titles of half of them (they're in English, French, Italian...whatever), but he's glanced at them enough idle times in passing to know that they're a mix of genres, that those books, whatever they're about, are well loved. They've travelled further across the world with Yuui than Kurogane himself has ever gone alone.

He bumps into the pile one time while carrying a pile of clothes through into Yuui's room, spending the night - the weekend, really, if he's going to be honest with himself - at the twins'. It's nothing to move a pile of freshly-ironed shirts, still smelling of softener, to one room or another, but he knocks the books with his hip as he passes by, and sends the top one falling to the floor with a muffled _thump_.

Kurogane bends to pick it up as soon as he sets down the shirts - but something flutters from between the thin pages as he raises the book from the ground, a drifting splash of colour. This, too, Kurogane goes to pick up from the floor - but he pauses before laying it on top of the book he's returned to its rightful place, caught by the image in his hands.

It's a photograph - an old one, but not terribly so, taken back before they'd been printed on smooth glossy paper, with a thin white border around its edge. It's in colour, and the colours are still vibrant for all the picture's age, and so it is Kurogane has no doubts about who exactly it is he's looking at in the photograph in his hands, though the years have changed the subjects in more ways than one.

Two children, maybe four years old, maybe five, lie tucked together, small limbs wrapped in powder blue and white pyjamas, small heads decorated with tousled gold hair. They lie sleeping in what looks like a large toy box, the lid thrown back and the toys crammed to the sides and overflowing from their home to give the children room, one of the boys with a blanket half-draped across his legs, the other encased beside his sibling by a snow-white bear. In sleep, in youth, it's impossible to tell which twin is which - but the fondness for both of them is felt across the years. The one taking the picture hadn't saw fit to disturb the boys from their slumber, immortalising instead the little snapshot of time, a precious memory to be tucked away and treasured, as beloved toys, for any child, to be found at the bottom of their chest.

Kurogane lies the picture down eventually, thoughtful - inside the cover of the book he'd found it in, and leaves Yuui's room. Outside Fai's making a racket, warbling along with some _hideous_ song on the radio, and Yuui's laughing as his brother goes amazingly off-key.

Behind them, two children lie dreaming, forever and always.


End file.
